First of all, I’m sorry that you’re hurting.

Truly. Genuinely. I am.

I have been to those painful places, too.

I’ve felt my heart break. I’ve watched people I love slip away. I’ve had those earth-shattering moments that tear your world to pieces and leave you with no blueprint as to how to reconstruct it.

There’s no way to deny the monstrous and horrific cracks that life leaves on our hearts.

There is no way to deny the seemingly unbearable weight of what it takes to be human sometimes.

But there are ways to shoulder this weight. There are ways to healthily surmount it. There are ways to make it bearable enough to keep on going.

But the #1 way to ensure the continuation of your pain is to expect someone to come along and take it all away from you.

To expect someone to come along and save you.

Someone who embodies the chivalrous qualities you’ve been searching your whole life for. Someone who loves you at your absolute worst. Someone who looks past all the ways in which you’re damaged and helps you piece your broken heart back together.

Someone who breaks down the walls that you have built up to protect yourself.

Someone who cares enough to fix you.

Because the truth is, no matter how broken and terrified you are, it will never be someone else’s responsibility to fix you.

It is not your new lover’s job to teach you to trust again, because your last lover betrayed you.

It is not your new partner’s job to rebuild your self-esteem after a toxic friendship or relationship has left it beaten-down.

It’s nobody’s responsibility to tear down the walls that you have built up around your heart.

It is no one’s job to save you from yourself.

Saving yourself is your own job. Full stop.

It is your job to pick yourself up off the floor when your heart is broken. It’s your job to piece your shattered life together. It’s your job to learn what healing looks like to you, and you alone.

It may not be your fault that you are hurting, but that doesn’t make your pain anyone else’s responsibility.

Your heart is still yours alone to mend. Your life is still yours to make whole again.

Because if you do not understand how to be happy and healthy alone, you will never understand how to be happy and healthy with a partner.

You will always need that other person like a crutch. You will always rely on them to an unhealthy extent. You will never feel whole when you’re without them, and you will most likely be entering into a relationship in which you are the toxic partner.

Because it is not your partner’s job to ‘love you at your worst’ – it is your job to not take your worst out on your partner.

It is your job to know how to handle yourself at your worst. To know how to deal with your traumas. To know how to recognize your own unhealthy behaviors. To have methods of dealing with them when they surface.

It’s unfair to ask another person to come along and put up with our toxic behaviors. To piece together the heart they didn’t break. To break down the walls they never erected. To treat us with the patience and diligence that we refuse to treat ourselves with first.

Because even if someone does come along and ‘fixes’ what’s broken in you, as soon as they leave you will be broken again.

As soon as they leave, you will forget how to cope, how to go on.

As soon as they leave, you will forget who you are all over again and their absence will ache twice as much.

As soon as they’re gone, you’ll be right back where you started, plus one giant heartbreak to boot.

The only way to ensure that you’ll be happy and whole again, is to find a way to become happy and whole on your own.

To do the hard work of breaking down your own walls, reconstructing your own heart and making the decision to trust again. To open yourself back up again. To love again, even if it’s going to bring more pain.

The only way to bring yourself back to the person you were before your heart broke, is to do the hard work of coming back to that person again.

To work through your issues. To learn new coping mechanisms. To make peace with the person you are now, even if that person is a little different than the person you wish you were.

The only way to find healthy love again is to heal your own hart – and then use it to love someone else the way they properly deserve.

Because the truth is, nobody is on their way to save you from your own shattered heart.

And even if they were – their love would be a Band-Aid, not a cure.